STORM SURGES FROM TYPHOONS TACLOBAN PHILIPPINES
Storm Surges from Typhoons in the Philippines Introduction A storm surge a coastal flood associated with typhoons. There are different things that effect the severity of the storm surge. These can include the shallowness and the orientation of the body of water to the storm path. There is more science involved but a typhoon with strong winds simply pushes the water to the shore and causes flooding. Large waves are formed by the strong winds. As these waves break, the water moving towards a beach may exceed twice the wave height before the wave actually breaks. As these waves break, the water particles moving toward the shore have considerable momentum and may run up a sloping beach to an elevation above the mean water line which may exceed twice the wave height before breaking. Typhoon Yolanda (International name Haiyan) was one of the largest storms to make land fall in history. The storm surge in the Tacloban area was huge. The size of the storm surge was not anticipa...